Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Comics Out 20 December 2006

The only thing I will be getting this week is the new issue of Testament (I can't believe how few comics I have gotten in the last three weeks); the only thing that I noticed in comics news this week was this great poster Famke Janssen did for PETA (the full article is here).

As usual, review, recommend, and discuss this weeks comics and comics news. And just to do one more list for fun (since again this is a slow week) here are my top ten favorite comic book characters, in no particular order:

I liked everyone's contributions to lists in the last two weeks: if you are up to it try this one. I will be working on the first part of what may become my issue-by-issue analysis of Grant Morrison's New X-Men.

EDIT (added Dec 20 2006 at 12:33pm): Two things I stupidly forgot:1. Jean Grey is out and the Maxx is in.2. Go see the new episode of Satacracy 88 at itsallinyourhands.com (link on the right). The blog about it will be up tomorrow.

1. Emma Frost (Both Morrison and Whedon's versions—Awesome. A real bitch, but still a real person.)2. Silver Surfer (Jim Starlin and Ron Lim's version—That two page spread of him soaring in at Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet #4 is perhaps the most suspenseful sequence ever.)3. Green Arrow (Denny O'Neil and Neil Adams' version—If you listen to O’Neil talk about the character on Word Balloon or Comic Geek Speak you’ll learn that Green Arrow IS Denny O’Neil. I love it. )4. Bishop (not really taken from any particular point in X-Men... I've always sensed a lot of untapped potential in his character. Plus, he's super fun to play as in X-Men Legends 2.)5. Magneto (Ian McKellen's version)6. Tony Stark/Iron Man (from The Ultimates)7. Black Lightning (from Meltzer's current Justice League--He's working real magic with that character) 8. Batman (from Morrison's JLA--Such a badass. He was the best part of that run for me)9. Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle (a wonderful example of how a character can develop. When Batman ended up in a wheelchair, they had to "cure" him really quick because his character isn't adaptable enough for a permanent change like that. Barbara Gordon’s character is. Plus she's totally hot.)10. Beast (both Morrison and Whedon’s versions—an uncomplicated, infinitely relatable character. He’s turning into a blue cat. He doesn’t want to be. And funny. )

1. Magneto (Geoff, that was a great note in your Magneto blog post about the assymetry between him and his "arch-enemy," Professor X, in terms of their abilities. I *love* observations like that!)

2. V

3. The gay Promethea in Promethea (Bill, I think his name was? The one on the cover of issue 7.)

4. Madelyne Prior (Claremont version) (That exciting PETA poster reminds me of a question that has sometimes occurred to me. If they ever introduced Madelyne Prior into the X-Men film series, would she be played by Famke Janssen? Or would they find an actress who looks uncannily similar to Famke Jannsen?)

5. Cerebus

6. Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum version)

7. The Beast (Stan Lee/Roy Thomas version)

8. Hawley Griffin (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

9. The Hulk (Peter David's grey version)

10. Suprema (from Alan Moore's Supreme; if for no other reason than her response to a bank robber who calls her a bitch -- "That kind of language isn't polite, it isn't clever, and it isn't funny.")

Man, I've had quite a bit of trouble with this and it was getting muddled, was I picking best characters or my actual favorites? So in the end, I managed to limit my choices to characters I've actually followed (as opposed to Beta Ray Bill, clearly awesome, but conceptually so, as I don't own enought Thor to call him a favorite.)

1. Spider-Man2. Iron Man3. Green Lantern4. Moonshadow5. Doctor Doom5. Silver Surfer6. Mr. Freeze (a small fudge, I know him best from the animated series)7. Venom8. Death or Yotsuba (a big fudge, but they of represent the same thing. A big fuzzy hug in comics)9. Lucifer10. Iron Wok Jan

Jason- I was thinking about Madelyne Pryor on my lunch break after reading your post. She was a favorite of mine too. It really irks me that she turned out to be clone of Jean and a demon princess. I feel like that gives Cyclops too much of any easy out. I mean, dude up and left her and the kid when he found out his old girlfriend was alive again. I loved when she was kicking around with the X-Men after Scott left her.

By making her into a demonic clone, it lets Cyclops off the hook by saying, "Hey. It's alright. She was never a person with real feelings anyway." I think it would have been infinitely more interesting to see Cyclops take some responsibility and deal with it like a real person. Apparently being honest with someone is harder than fighting a demonic clone queen.

I hear what you're sayin' about Maddie. I don't know if you know the behind-the- scenes on how that all went down -- but it was basically that Marvel editorial wanted to make a comic (which would become X-Factor) that had the original five X-Men reunited. In order to do it, the writers both had to pull the Jean-Grey ressurection out of their butts (by basically ripping off the premise of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, i.e., no, Phoenix wasn't Jean Grey, it was a collection of energy that just THOUGHT it was Jean Grey), and had to turn Cyclops into a wife-abandoning jerk.

Claremont and Simonson were apparently appalled by this. Their less than elegant solution (and they've both admitted, I believe, that it was a fudged job) was to make Cyclops good by making Maddie retroactively evil and telepathic and manipulative and bad.

Even though it all was kind of a sucky fix, I admit I actually have affection even for demon-Madelyne, basically because she had kind of a "righteous rage" motif that I thought Claremont played up really well. During Inferno, Madelyne was, it's true, an evil demonic clone queen -- but at the same time, you kind of had some sympathy for her, since all her reasons for hating Cyclops were actually really just. Or at least, that was how I always read those issues.

I think Maddie's on my list because she's a fascinating example of a character totally yanked around by forces that have nothing to do with any kind of creative or artistic vision -- but because of that she has a really bizarre, off-the-charts character arc. I guess I have a sort of perverse affection for comics characters affected by that phenomenon.

Re: Cyclops owning up to his jerkiness, there was a great interview with Claremont back when Marvel had Cyclops and Jean get married. He was talking about how he would've written Cyclops' proposal scene, and it would've gone something like:

Cyclops: Will you marry me, Jean?Jean: Why should I?Cyclops: Because I love you.Jean: You loved Madelyne.Cyclops: ... um ...Jean: Yeeeah, boy, how you like me now?

(Or something along those lines. Would've loved to see that scene appear in an X comic.)

Or ... in the end, maybe I just like Maddie Pryor because she's named after the lead singer of Steeleye Span. I love that band!

Alex: Beta Ray Bill is awesome but like you, I know nothing about him. Thanks for reminding me he exists.

Mitch: hilarious.

Jason: I remember vaguely that Maddy Pryor had a weird afterlife (literally) in the 25th issue of X-Man (the series that spun out of Age of Apocalypse): Nate Gray, the grown-in-a-test-tube child of the Age of Apocalypse (i.e. alternate universe) Cyclops and Phoenix -- and thus a kind of alternate universe Cable now stranded in the regular Marvel Universe (I will be dead and in the ground before I call it the 616 universe) -- was lonely. Then Maddy Pryor showed up. He fell in love. They had sex. Then it turned out he was such a powerful psychic he, in his loneliness, unconsciously resurrected her. So he was -- follow the logic if you dare -- having sex with the dead demon clone of his alternate universe mother (though he was grown in a test tube so "mother" is a loose term).

There is no other way to say how much I -- GOD! -- I love comics.

Alex: BKV on LOST. OK. Ultimately he will have so much less control in a show than in a comic so it's not like he can really screw it up or really ruin it. Let's hope he brings something good to the table.

Both of these characters have/had a destiny or fate that they've fought against.

3) Jenny Sparks in Ellis' Authority4) Destruction in Sandman-- the story is built around this character that you don't see until over halfway through everything.

5) King Mob in The Invisibles6) Horatio Hellpop in Nexus7) Mister Miracle8) Frankenstein in Seven Soldiers9) Kid Flash (Wally West)when he was part of The New Teen Titans.10) 1950's Superman (it's just too goofy.)

You know, all this talk of Madelyne Prior reminds me of a great line that Claremont had in X-Men 243, when the X-Men first see Mr. Sinister for the first time. Cyclops says "Who's that?!?!?" And Madelyne Prior replies:

Jason-- Thanks for your explanation. I knew most of it, but I didn't know that Claremont and Simonson were against her becoming Goblin Queen and you are right... that does give her a "righteous rage". It's the writers' rage. And I should stop whining. It's not like I don't own and constantly re-read Inferno(even thought its far from my favorite). My favorite Maddie line is one that encapsulates almost all of Claremont's idiosyncrasies and its from FROM THE ASHES when she says to Cyclops, "The bubbly is nice and chilled, lover. Wanna get blitzed and fool around?" haha. I love it first, because everyone in Claremont's mind calls their significant other "lover" and second because this was back in the day when mostly teenaged kids were reading X-Men and this is probably the thing they longed to hear most from a woman.

Mitch, I'm starting to feel a little sheepish at having wasted so much bandwith going on at length about Maddie. (I'm very sorry, Geoff -- it's just a painfully slow week at work.)

That said, my favorite Claremont idiosyncracy... Whenever one half of a couple says, "I love you." The other half, invariably, will respond with: "And I, you." If you're lucky, they'll follow it up with, "...from the moment we first met."

About Me

Geoff Klock has a big degree from a fancy-pants university. He wrote some books on superheroes and poetry like 10 years ago. Also essays on film, and TV and teaching. You have Google, right? He spoke at the Met once, and inspired a name of a villain in Matt Fraction's Casanova, which is a really good comic book. He made a crazy mash up of like 200 movie and TV clips quoting Hamlet. Geoff teaches mostly writing, but also Old Brit Lit and Film, at BMCC. He rides a bicycle to get there. He is very good at Facebook?

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Jason Powell has taken on the yeoman's job of doing an issue by issue analysis of Chris Claremont's 17 year Uncanny X-Men run in an effort to make me feel bad for saying Morrison invented all kinds of things he did not in his New X-Men run, and for spelling Claremont "Clairmont" in my superhero book.

Scott McDarmont (Scott91777) is an Instructor Of English at Radford University, Radford VA, an avid reader of books by guys named Chuck, he usually “waits for the trade” on comics unless Frank Miller is somehow involved. He owns more Def Leppard CDs than Bob Dylan CDs and he is ‘Ok’ with this and, while he may answer different publicly, he secretly feels that The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie ever made. He also feels that there are two kinds of people in the world: Indiana Jones people and John McClane people. He considers himself an Indiana Jones person

Jill Duffy, girl reporter, is a professional writer and editor in New York. She spent five years covering video game development in both San Francisco and London, examining the art, science, and business of the industry, and in 2006 was named one of the top 100 most influential women in the game industry. Her work has appeared in The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, where she was the food section editor, as well as Game Developer, Gamasutra.com, Intelligent Enterprise, DigitalTrends.com, and several other publications. She holds a BA in English from the University at Buffalo. Indeed, she is on the Twitter and also keeps a blog about food.

Andy Bentley is a graphic designer in upstate New York. The first series of Batman movies got him in a comic book store and the DC animated series made him a life long fan. His senior thesis was a short film on the culture of comic books. Animal Man, Starman, and Preacher are among his favorite comic runs. He is an avid toy collector and enjoys playing basketball, mash-ups, karaoke and dark beers. He will be sequestered most of September with The Beatles: Rock Band.